I knew I’d written a post about the origins of nursery rhymes, but I didn’t realize it was over nine years ago! So here is the long awaited follow-up courtesy of our school study of insects.

Along with catching a ladybug in our yard, studying a diagram of insect parts, copying a picture from a field guide, and reading about beetles in The Practical Entomologist, we also read aloud Ladybug by Robert M. McClung (1966).

This picture book explains the life cycle of ladybugs in story format. It ends with the words, “Ladybug spread her wings and flew out into the bright sunshine. She would hunt for aphids in the garden this year too.”

An afterword called “Ladybugs and Man” shares some interesting facts. One paragraph is about the popular nursery rhyme. Here’s one version.

Ladybird, ladybird fly away home,
Your house is on fire and your children are gone,
All except one, and her name is Ann,
And she hid under the baking pan.

McClung writes, “That rhyme got its start hundreds of years ago in the Old World, where hopvines are grown. After harvesting the hops, farmers often gathered the vines into heaps and burned them to get rid of the aphids on them. There were usually many lady-beetle larvae on the hopvines too, busily eating the aphids. When the vines were set afire, the little aphis wolves [ladybug larvae] roamed away as fast as they could go, so they wouldn’t be burned.”

We know that nursery rhymes often have murky origins. Have you heard this origin story or a different one? Wikipedia says this rhyme dates to at least 1744 and that some people speculate that it actually refers to legislation against Catholics in the 16th century (“Ladybird” is a reference to Our Lady). Interesting stuff.

Whatever will we learn about next?